The ALA Office for Diversity website provides information and resources on Strategic Planning for Diversity, Employment Discrimination, Diversity Statistics, Diversity Advocacy and the Recruitment and Retention of a Diverse Library Workforce.

Training Programs

There are a number of general training resources available that target diversity issues. When looking through general training materials on diversity, you may wish to seek out exercises from the service industry if your goal is to facilitate service to diverse library users versus training staff on workplace diversity. If you are targeting workplace diversity, human resource training materials abound.

Which exercise you might wish to use depends very much on the outcome you are looking for from the training (are you raising people's awareness of the range of learning styles, the need for accomodations, their own prejudices, etc). To create meaningful change, you usually want to be as specific as possible. Also, ground training exercises designed to improve service to diverse communities in the community actually served by that specific library. Locate as much information as possible about the library users and the surrounding community. GeoLib displays easy-to-use geographic information of relevance, for library planning for a wide audience of (e.g., library researchers, librarians, and policymakers.)

Professional trainers often develop their own exercises after observing the actual climate where they are going to provide a training. They would review the climate surveys (if they have been done), shadow the library for a half day before providing a training, and conduct staff interviews. Informaton for finding a library diversity trainer can be found on the ALA Diversity Wiki . Keep in mind, the particular materials and exercises developed by a given trainer is intellectual property.